by Elizabeth Bishop
from The Complete Poems 1927-1979One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

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Hidden Altar-
-tucked-
Where sprites bristle with Eve
and flow freely
No one considered
the ritual
no one thought it up-
out of book and prayer
twinned with time
came free spirits...
Tiny silken moth
fluttering by
accidentally brushes
the heart...
...light passes
and Eve listens
to lost Romeo
or Aristotle
or Cain
with same forgiving ear...